All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 17, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
29:22
The Faces Behind Losing Afghanistan
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is an iHeart podcast.
All right, news roundup information overload hour, 800-941-Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
We have Donald Trump on Hannity tonight.
What is the difference as his approach from a withdrawal in Afghanistan versus Joe Biden's disaster?
Because there are huge, huge differences in what their plans were in spite of Joe Biden's blame.
Pretty much Biden, Buck stops with me, but I want to blame the president of Afghanistan that fled.
And I want to blame the military that I said was one of the best in the world just a couple of weeks ago.
And when all else fails, I'm going to blame Donald Trump because I inherited it.
Well, you also inherited Joe secure borders.
You also inherited Joe energy independence.
You also inherited Joe COVID controls with therapeutics and vaccines.
And you didn't have to let, you know, all these illegal immigrants with a high rate of COVID positivity into the country and then disperse them all throughout the country without any testing, without any vaccine mandates for them.
Anyway, here's Biden blaming the fall of Afghanistan on everybody but himself.
And Leon Panetta, well, former, again, defense secretary, not a conservative, former CIA director.
Listen to how he compares the fall of Afghanistan.
When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban.
The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban.
So what's happened?
Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country.
The Afghan military collapsed sometime without trying to fight.
I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghans, civilians sooner.
Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier.
I am President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.
This moment is what for Joe Biden, President Biden.
You know, in many ways, I think of John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
You know, it unfolded quickly, and the president thought that everything would be fine, and that was not the case.
But President Kennedy took responsibility for what took place.
And I strongly recommend to President Biden that he take responsibility, admit the mistakes that were made.
And he could fix it.
There are ways to fix this.
But of course, with each passing day, it becomes even that much more difficult.
Now, imagine if you lost a son, a daughter, or you have a son or a daughter or somebody close to you in your life with the most severe injuries that served in Afghanistan or those that have PTSD for having served so many tours over there.
And now you're watching and asking yourself, why?
What did we accomplish for 20 years and the price that was so heavy that was paid by so many?
You know, for example, we're going to introduce to you Billy Vaughan.
He's the gold star father of Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughan.
He's been on the program a number of times before.
Great guy.
And by the way, that story was turned into a movie, Fallen Angel, Call Sign, Extortion 17.
We talked about this in the past.
Our friend Israel Del Toro, he's an Air Force Sergeant Master, and we call him DT affectionately, was serving a tour of duty in 2005.
We've told you his story.
His Humvee rolled over an IED, and he suffered severe burns, more than 80% of his body.
Doctors gave him a 15% chance of survival.
And through the love and support of an incredible family that I have met, Del Toro, DT, not only survived, he went on to accomplish even more than he ever dreamed.
Billy Vaughan, the father of Aaron Vaughan, lost his son when government missteps led to the largest loss of life incident in Afghanistan in this war.
30 Americans making the ultimate sacrifice for their country when their U.S. Army helicopter exploded in Afghanistan, killing everyone on board.
Ten years later is now the Taliban.
We're watching it seize every city in Kabul and Afghanistan.
You know, how do you think he feels today?
I bet pretty sick.
Anyway, joining us now is Billy Vaughan, and our good friend DT is back with us.
Welcome back, both of you.
I wish it was under better circumstances.
You've both been longtime friends of the program.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sean.
Thank you very much.
Billy, I mean, I don't even know where to begin to ask the question.
I mean, how do you feel?
Just it seems so inadequate a question, but it's, I can't imagine.
I mean, if I was, I'd be out of my mind, apoplectic and furious today.
Well, Sean, you know, we didn't expect anything good out of Joe Biden.
I mean, we've never seen anything good out of him.
And, you know, we knew it would be a continuation of the eight years of the Obama-Biden administration and the failures in foreign policy, which, by the way, he says he is the expert on national security and foreign policy.
He's been in it over 40 years, you know, and we see that.
But, you know, in my mind, Sean, you know, I'm just an American citizen, just a dad.
And I don't have any words to express.
I never dreamed that it would be this cataclysmic when Biden did this.
I mean, it's a betrayal of all time to the American citizen, to the American warrior, to the Afghan people.
And then all he wants to do is throw insults and talk about how he made the right decision.
And I mean, he's a sickening individual, and I will not call him, I will not call him by the word that goes in front of President, that goes in front of Trump, President Trump.
I will not give that title to that man.
And I think here again, as a citizen, he needs to resign.
Citizens need to stand up in this country and demand accountability from this administration and from political generals and admirals.
And I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to go about that.
But I know and surely it can be done.
And we need some accountability for what's taking place in Afghanistan.
As a father, do you think in the back of your mind, maybe why did I allow my son to do this?
Well, no, no, I don't, because Aaron was doing what he wanted to do.
Aaron thought that those political generals and admirals, just like other SEALs, just like other warriors, not just SEALs, but all of them, they love this country.
They love the American way of life.
They love their family.
They love God.
And you know what?
They thought they were helping the American people.
And so, you know, Aaron was my boy, but he's also a grown man.
And you know what?
He's the kind of man, if he were alive today, he'd be sick.
But I think in my mind, he'd be trying to find a way to get back over there and help those people and help Americans get out.
He wouldn't be sitting on his ass over here someplace eating ice cream like this man in the White House.
He was just that kind of guy.
I always say America's treasure.
And we can't do this anymore.
We can't ask America's treasure, people like your son, to go fight these wars and abandon them and just say, oh, never mind.
After they put their blood, their soul, their heart, their lives on the line, many die like your son.
Many come back with severe injuries like DT.
DT, great to have you back.
By the way, DT's biggest fan in the world is Linda.
They talk 24-7.
It's like unbelievable.
And he's become a friend, longtime friend of the program, too.
You're watching all this unfold.
You know what's going on here.
What is your reaction to all of this?
You know, Sean, it's a mixture from anger to frustration to disappointment to sadness, you know, the anger that, you know, we went out there to go through a mission and to almost just kind of give up on it, you know.
As an operator, one knows we go there to win, we go there to fight, we go there to crush the enemy and keep the enemy at bay.
And it seems like all that blood, sweat, and treasure was for a freaking participation trophy.
And it saddens me because not only was I out there to be a freaking knuckle dragger to freaking just crush the enemy, call it an airstrike, but I also got to see and help in the region I was in.
I helped those little girls go to school for the first time.
I can see that.
And, you know, we don't talk about that a lot when we're out there doing the thing.
You just hear about us crushing the enemy.
But people forget about those girls that never got to go to school before and now they are.
And one has to imagine we've been there 20 years, 20 years we've been able to keep the peace over there for the minorities and the girls to have a life.
And now it's just all on the way.
And that's the sad part.
And it hurts because I don't have the, what was it for?
I know what it was for.
I was there for what happened in 9-11.
I was there, you know, destroying the enemy.
I know why I went there.
And I would do it again, even knowing that I got hurt.
But it's just disappointing that we left those people there to die.
And it's sadding because who's going to help us?
People say, well, we can't be there forever.
It's like, and I got that.
No one's debating that.
What people are debating is the matter how we left.
And I also like to bring them up.
It's like, well, what do you think?
When they say, well, we should have left right away.
It's like, tell me, what would have happened if we left after World War II?
We left Europe.
Do you think Russia would have just sat there?
No, that would have taken all over that.
Or more recent, Korea.
We leave South Korea.
What do you think is going to happen?
We've been there for years longer.
We're still in Europe.
So we just let these guys.
And like some of me and my teammates have talked, it's like, do you think any other people are going to trust us now?
We're going to be there for you.
And like I said, it's sad.
We betrayed my teammates.
We betrayed my Afghani National Army guys that were by my side, getting shot at, getting died.
Those guys fall.
You can understand why these guys just gave up.
We were there.
We had, what, 2,500 guys left, and they were mostly for support, giving them air superiority.
So whenever anytime they got in trouble, they had that support.
Now you take that away from them.
We as Americans never got to worry about not having air above us.
We always have that option where, oh, crap, we're in a fine.
We can call in that airstrike, and we can overcome the enemy.
It also serves as a deterrent.
Quick break, we'll come back.
More with Billy Vaughn.
He lost his Navy SEAL son, Aaron Vaughan, as he reacts to the events in Afghanistan, along with our friend Israel del Toro, better known as DT.
Anyway, listen, you heard about the defund the police madness, dismantle the police, no bail laws.
All right, we continue.
Billy Vaughn is with us.
He lost his Navy SEAL son, Aaron, and Israel Del Toro is with us.
We affectionately refer to him as DT.
We're reacting to the events in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump is on Hannity tonight.
You know, what I'm worried about, you know, on top of everything that has happened, which was preventable, the Pentagon says they've been warning Biden for months and months about this coming pending debacle.
And the Taliban now is in control of their capital.
And the State Department is actually telling Americans in Kabul that we've left behind to shelter in place.
We have as many as 40,000 Americans stranded, but they're only taking about 5,000 a day.
Why is there not a massive airlift operation to get them out today, the latest tomorrow?
Wall Street Journal was pointing out the evacuation flights are taking off almost empty.
You know, with as many as 10,000, 40,000 American citizens locked in on the ground.
Never mind the interpreters that aided us and helped us, but at least 10,000 to 40,000 U.S. citizens are there.
We can't get a straight answer.
Even the Washington Post is pointing out this is a national disgrace.
And then the Pentagon is warning, well, yeah, now the threat of terrorism around the world has increased significantly.
I'm like, yeah, no Adam Schiff here.
No kidding.
Mr. Vaughn, you know, how do we get these Americans out?
Your son gave his life fighting to prevent Americans being in harm's way.
Well, you know, Sean, this is just Billy, not in military experts talking, but I believe we have the military and the hardware and the weapons.
And if we want to get them out, we can get them out.
And I believe our military can do just about anything that they're called on to do if the citizens and the jellyfish is in the White House and the political admirals and generals get out of the way.
Let them go in there and get them.
I can tell you, those operators can go in there and get them out.
And, you know, they can take names and kick buttons.
They could get them out.
Just like they've won that war a long time ago, but they kept us in there.
Nation building and political correctness and stuff, but they can get them out of there.
We just need to do it.
We need to use whatever we have to use to save Americans and get them out of there.
That's just an opinion from a man right here in Florida that's just a citizen.
I think a pretty smart man that had an incredibly brave and courageous and heroic son, Billy Vaughan, great to hear your voice and talk to you again.
It's been a while.
DT, I know you talk to Linda every day.
Don't lie about it.
It's a well-known secret.
You guys are chitting and chatting and yipping and yapping all the time.
Anything she says about me, by the way, is probably likely a lie.
It's not true.
Say nice things about you.
DT, is that true or not, right?
DT, true.
She does say nice things.
She says nice things.
See?
Yeah, okay.
But anyway, we love you both.
And thank you both.
Thank you.
I got to tell you, and Linda, C.L. Bryant told me to tell you that he got me first.
He wanted to gig you.
So he said, make sure you tell me.
Whoa, who got me?
Who got us?
C.L. Bryant.
By the way, let me tell you, the next time you go on with Reverend CL, you got to call him out.
Don't worry about CL.
I know all about CL.
All right.
Love you both.
Thanks for coming back.
I'm sorry under these circumstances, as always.
Sad.
800-941, Sean.
Will you please get C.L. back on the program soon?
Because I am going to get my revenge.
I wanted to remind you: there's a really cool event coming up, and I just asked Charlie Daniels Jr.
to join us and remind us.
Anyway, it's at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
And anyway, it's a volunteer jam.
There's a lot of huge acts that are going to be there.
And I just wanted Charlie to remind people that this is going on.
A lot of people still think events are not happening.
They are.
Tell us what you got going on tomorrow night, and I wish I could be there.
Well, we wish you could be there too, Sean.
But we understand.
But I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you for having me on today.
I mean, I know the world is going crazy.
A friend of mine who's retired special forces said that he thought he was watching the documentary about the last days of Vietnam, and it was actually the news about Afghanistan.
And the people in Afghanistan, especially the women and children, they really need our prayers.
And we're dealing with COVID.
Do you know about how many times your dad went over to Iraq and Afghanistan to perform for the troops?
At least three or four times.
At least three or four times.
But I know there's a lot of stuff blowing up in the world right now.
And you knew my dad.
He would not be at a loss for words right now.
He would be coming over to the world.
He'd be texting me and telling me what I need to say.
You know, I'd be able to use about half of it, you know, and take out the rest, and I can use half of it.
Yeah.
But so the event tomorrow night, it's most likely the last volunteer jam.
The volunteer jam started in 1974.
It continued off and on over the years.
And you were at the one in 2015.
So you know what it's like.
Dad was all about the military.
He loved our armed forces.
He used to say only two things protect America, the grace of Almighty God and the United States military.
He's going to be there tomorrow because it's going to be a salute to Charlie, Volunteer Jam.
And you got like every big name act in Nashville coming out for this.
It's at the Nashville, the Nashville Bridgestone Arena.
It's at 7 o'clock tomorrow.
Man, I wish I could be there.
We wish you could too.
But it's, I mean, it's, I mean, Alabama, Marshall Tucker band, Chris Young, the Gatlin brothers, Big and Rich, good old John's going to be there.
So Michael W. Smith, Pure Prairie League, Lori Morgan.
It's just, there's going to be a lot of people.
They're all friends of mine.
Everyone you're mentioning is a friend of mine, and I'm a fan of everyone.
Well, you know, if you weren't such an important guy and had stuff to do up there, get your butt down here.
I'm trying to get a couple of days off in the summer this year, just a couple.
And I'm just gearing up for next year when I know I won't take any days.
That's the way election years work.
Well, we love your dad.
And can people just, where do the people go if they want to join tomorrow night and go see this great tribute to you, Dad?
It's at, like you said, it's at the Bridgestone.
There's a rotating slide on the front page of CharliDaniels.com that will take you right to the Ticket Link at Ticketmaster.
And to let everybody know that part of this is going to support the Journey Home Project, which is Dad's charity, which aims to help our veterans adjust to civilian life.
And people just can come have a great time in the middle of all the chaos in the world.
You know, that's what people want.
A few minutes just to take a break.
That's what sports used to be about, but now that's been politicized.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's tomorrow night.
It's all taking place.
Salute to Charlie Daniels.
Every big name in Nashville is going to be there at the Nashville Bridgestone Arena, 7 o'clock.
Charlie Daniels Jr., we love you.
We loved your dad more than anything, and we appreciate you reminding us.
Thank you.
And we love you, and Dad loved you so much, and I just appreciate it.
Thank you.
Feeling was mutual, my friend, as you know.
John in Chicago.
What's up, John?
Glad you called.
Thanks a lot for taking my call.
We've been listening and watching you since your first visit to Chicago back in the day and been following you religiously since then.
But we're going to talk about big picture here.
I've been working in security and surveillance for many years, working with alphabet agencies.
And what we're not seeing in this whole exodus from Afghanistan, we left all seven air bases.
We left the drone launchers.
We left the Humvees.
We left the ammo.
We left everything we could have destroyed in place, right?
So that somebody could use it, right?
Yeah, this was all planned.
Or we could have taken it with us to save the taxpayer money because we pay for all of that.
Some of those Humvees.
You know what an uparmored Humvee costs?
It's a fortune.
Yeah, I happen to be married to a federally licensed customs house broker.
The cost of bringing that back is extraordinary.
However, we could have destroyed it in place and stopped them from using it against our allies.
Well, about a month and a half ago, Russia started moving assets to the Afghan border.
If you notice, there's been a lot of money being exchanged between China and Iran and so on and so forth.
All we have to do, Sean, and this is, and you have great investigative powers, follow the money.
There are people in the United States here, and this is not a conspiracy theory, that are making millions and millions of dollars off of this and the lives of our men and women who have perished in that conflict and that rebuilding of a great deal.
Let me put emphasis on one thing you're saying here, which I think is very, very important, is that both Russia and China are very quickly moving in to recognize the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan and form a quick alliance, as quick an alliance as possible.
And all of that is unfolding before our eyes, just like they're funding terror, the number one state sponsor of terror, Iran.
I think I've been like the only idiot on TV and radio saying it almost every day so people will understand how profound this is.
You're watching a realignment of rogue, hostile regimes that do not like this country and do not like the Western world, whether it's China, some of these radical Islamic countries, or whether it's Russia.
These are all hostile regimes to the United States.
That's why Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Joe's brother, the Biden family syndicate, all the monies they got from all of these hostile regimes matters.
Their actions are Joe's actions seem to me as somebody who knows that his family is compromised.
And it is beyond alarming, nor is he really up to the task of handling the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan anymore.
I'm most worried in the short term about getting our fellow Americans the hell out of there, or it's going to turn into day 444, America held hostage in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
If we're not careful, you know, the idea that I'm reading today, well, you know, they're only taking 5,000 people a day.
And for the advice from our State Department is shelter in place in a Kabul in Afghanistan.
Shelter in place for what?
What are we waiting?
What are they waiting for?
Where the hell are the airplanes?
Where are they to get these people home immediately?
And maybe we don't have to accept the entire population of interpreters, but those that are known to have been helping our military efforts for 20 years, if we don't get them out, they will be dead.
They will be dead.
And that is as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
You can bet on that too.
Anyway, I appreciate the call.
Thank you.
Let's get back to our phones.
Let's say hi to Sandra is in upstate New York.
What's up, Sandra?
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you, Sean, for taking my call.
I listen to you every day.
I watch your program at night.
Thank you for getting the truth out there.
And I just want to make it quick and say how much this is.
I find this so disturbing.
And that our troops who have served over there all this time, have died, have come home broken, they have my heart.
They are my heroes, totally.
My husband served in Vietnam.
And so I know how these troops are, their families and everything.
It just breaks my heart.
And the fact that our so-called president, who should resign, and I want him to resign, he's no longer viable for me.
And that he's in his camp, David, while the Taliban, one of the head of the Taliban is in Afghanistan near Kabul from Obama-Briden that they let out a Gitmo.
I think it's terrible.
And I saw Jake Sullivan from the State Department.
He was making little comments on TV a little while ago.
And he was just trying to either blame Trump or blame that, oh, they couldn't do this and they didn't know about that.
It's like, you know, Sean, this administration needs to go.
The whole administration does, the Democrats.
They are unfit, and Biden is totally unfit to be president.
I don't disagree at all.
You know, I just, what do we do?
He's not, listen, I'll tell you this.
If it was the Trump family compromised by China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia, trust me, the coverage would be very different.
Just like if any of the Trump kids dumped, you know, lied on a gun application and dumped a weapon in a trash can and is on like a million home videos with hookers and smoking crack cocaine, I don't think they'd survive that either.
Or if they had zero experience and were getting paid millions of dollars and their daddy, the president, threatened to withhold taxpayer dollars unless they fire the prosecutors that are investigating and wanting to arrest one of the Trump kids.
I don't think they'd ignore that part either.
We're living in a very corrupt, biased media environment.
And it is sad.
We don't have equal justice.
We don't have equal coverage.
You know, Twitter, big tech, they silence conservatives.
We still have talk radio.
They try to take that away from us a million times, a million different ways.
There's a few of us on Fox.
You just watch Fox.
You know that not everyone on Fox agrees with Sean Hannity.
It's pretty obvious.
But at least I have my voice that I'm not told what to say or do.
I make those decisions myself, just like I do with my radio partners.
And at least we're trying our best, but it's really going to count on all of us together to get the word out.
And that means all of you on social media and those of you that are out there doing, you know, getting involved as much as you possibly can to whatever level you can.
I know we're all busy.
I know everybody's got mortgages and rent to pay and food to put on the table and tuition to pay and car payments to pay and truck payments to pay.
And life's hard.
But even if it's just voting, every bit helps.
It really does.
Sandra, thank you.
We only have less than a minute.
Joseph in Georgia, I'll give it all to you, but it's less than a minute.
Yes, sir.
I'm a veteran of Afghanistan and Kuwait.
I just want to put in perspective what the last guy said.
The amount of assets we left behind is damning.
We have several fuel tanks there that holds hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel.
They can also be used in the diesel vehicles that were left behind.
So now these guys have vehicles.
They have fuel trucks on top of that.
And they have ammunition caches and the weapons we left behind on top of a functioning airfield that all China and Russia has to do is come in, land.
Hey, they've got their foothold.
We should have evacuated the embassy first, brought everybody to Bargram, blew them out.
Once the embassy and all that was done, get our guys out, send them out, gone, and we could have been out of there.
And we wouldn't have had to tell a soul we were leaving until every last American was out of there.
But that's my take.
We need to be gone.
It just, it needed to be prosecuted a whole lot better.
But I just want to say, who the hell, P-O-L?
Donald Trump wouldn't have done it this way because he never would have let them get the 60% of the country that they had by last week.
He would have done exactly what he did in Syria, bomb the hell out of them.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
How do we get all of these Americans home?
Well, Biden of Pentagon is apparently negotiating with the Taliban, which they had criticized Donald Trump for, to get Americans evacuated from Kabul airport.
Great.
I thought that was the wrong thing to do.
Anyway, Donald J. Trump will join us.
We'll talk to him about Afghanistan and China and Russia and Iran.
And we'll also talk about the borders.
We'll talk about losing energy independence, inflation, the economy, and everything in between.
Yeah, I wonder if some Americans might miss some of his mean tweeting because I think the competency is a lot better, was a lot better under Donald Trump, and it's fairly obvious for everyone to see.
That's tonight at 9.
Donald Trump for most of the hour on camera on the Fox News channel.
We'll see you then back here tomorrow.
▲
Export Selection